MenuEverywhere is a must-have utility if you use more than one monitor with your Mac. MenuEverywhere places a menu bar on each screen or window, so you no longer have to struggle with mousing from one screen to another, just to access a menu item or two.

MenuEverywhere

MenuEverywhere also has an advantage over other similar utilities; it doesn't hack your OS in order to create the menu system. Instead, it uses approved Apple programming interfaces to perform its magic. This means you don't have to worry that MenuEverywhere will break under the next OS update, or that it will interfere with your ability to update your OS.

MenuEverywhere is $14.95; it requires OS X 10.6.x or later. A demo is available.

See other software choices from Tom's Budget Software Picks.

As many readers will remember, I purchased a new Mac Pro late this summer, and I've been enjoying every minute. But something seemed to be missing from my previous Mac, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I was quite sure it was something I had customized, but I couldn't figure out what it was, until today, when I needed to re-launch an application I had used earlier in the day.

Screenshot courtesy of Coyote Moon Inc.

This application isn't one I keep in the Dock, or in any launch shortcuts I use, because it isn't one I use often. So, I went to the Apple menu to look at the Recent Items entry. And that's when it hit me. I used to have two Recent Items stacks in the Dock on the old Mac, and I hadn't yet added this option to my new Mac Pro. I quickly added two Recent Items stacks, one that displays recent applications, and one that displays recent documents.

If you would like to add a Recent Items stack or two to your Dock, just follow these instructions:

• Add a Recent Applications Stack to the Dock

Gone and already forgotten. Apple has pulled the plug on the compact wired keyboard that was available as a build-to-order option on desktop Macs. The compact wired keyboard, which essentially meant no keypad, was first introduced in 2009 as the default keyboard for the iMac.

Courtesy of Apple

By late 2009, Apple had replaced the compact wired keyboard with a Bluetooth wireless version, and shifted the old wired version to a build-to-order option. With the compact wired keyboard gone, Apple currently offers just two keyboards: the compact wireless model and the wired keyboard with numeric keypad.

I think I have one of the compact wired keyboards kicking around here somewhere; it's probably in the closet, to serve as an emergency keyboard if we ever need it. But I hope we never do, because I think the compact wired keyboard (and the wireless model, too, for that matter) is one of the worst keyboards Apple ever made.

Of course, keyboards are very personal devices. What one person loves, another dislikes so intensely that they wish drone spy planes equipped with hellfire missiles would eradicate the world of the beasts. Or, so I am told.

I've been using virtualization applications to run Windows and Linux OSes on my Mac since 2006, when Apple first delivered Intel-based Macs. Over the years, I've used Parallels Desktop for Mac, VMWare Fusion, and Oracle (formally Sun) VirtualBox.

OpenGL Performance

Each has its compelling features, but which is the fastest when just measuring raw performance? Last year, we performed our first benchmark tests of the three main virtualization environments. Now that a year has gone by, it's time to re-visit the issue and see how the applications have improved over time.

If you use a virtualization application and you've wondered how well it stacks up against the competition, or you're in the market for your first virtualization application, check out our benchmark tests for 2010: Virtualization Benchmark of Parallels 6.0.1, Fusion 3.1.1, and VirtualBox 3.2.1